Southern Gardening: Queen Anne’s Lace thrives in landscapes

Written by BY Gary R. Bachman, MSU Horticulturist
Friday, 23 May 2014 20:21

A dizzying array of new plants for the home landscape and garden are promoted every year, and several got their starts along our roadsides and ditches.

Horticulturists often say that many of our landscape plants are only a step or two out of the ditch. One of my favorite ditch-loving varieties that bloom each spring is Queen Anne’s Lace. Some people consider them weeds, but I believe they have many worthy qualities.

Introduced to North America by the European settlers, Queen Anne’s Lace is sometimes called wild carrot, and indeed, this plant does develop a yellowish-white taproot that is edible. Our modern carrots were selected from this plant. Carrots are orange because the plant breeders of the 16th century wanted to honor the royal family of the Netherlands, known as the House of Orange. Modern garden carrots come in many other colors, even back to the original white and yellow.